Posts Tagged ‘Running’

I have been neglecting this little blog, haven’t I? I always wondered (before I had kids) how moms of newborns could post regularly, but then once the babies grew into toddlers, they disappeared from the blog world. Now, I totally understand. Toddlers are different creatures- walking, babbling and definitely NOT napping for hours on end like they used to when they were infants. Anyways, I just wanted to come in to say hello and how you what we’ve been up to this past month before I put up ANOTHER monthly update! Miss Adeline turned 14 months yesterday, what in the world?!

Elf for Health has been so much fun! It’s a challenge that started the week of Thanksgiving and runs through Christmas. There are lots of fun daily challenges like tracking your water intake and doing 100 burpees (ahem, maybe that’s not so much fun). Check out our challenges:

Every participant gets paired up with an “Elf Buddy” and I just wanted to brag about mine for a minute :) Katy over at Joy. Laughter. Sweat is my elf buddy, and she has been amazing! She even made this encouraging pic and Tweeted it to me on the day of my Turkey Trot! She also just put up an awesome looking leg workout, I pinned it so that I can check it out soon.

Speaking of the Turkey Trot, I’m really proud of myself for sticking to the Hal Higdon 10K Training Plan. The plan was really easy to follow, and it definitely got me back into the running groove. I ran the Northeast YMCA Turkety Trot in Louisville, KY. I keep trying to remember how many years I’ve been a participant, and I think this was my 5th or 6th year doing this race! The weird thing about this race is that the distance isn’t exact- it is promoted a being a 10k, but each year, there is a contest to guess the correct distance. My RunKeeper app had the distance at 5.48mi. There were 9 of us who partipated, it was a CHILLY morning (23*) and the baby girls did great!

Just try to stand as awkward as I do for photos, I dare you. I wanted to hang right at 8min miles, and I’m super stoked that I was able to do that. My official time was 43:18. I placed 4th in my age group (out of 49). I’m definitely proud of finishing my first postpartum race, but I don’t think I’ll be signing up for any races this winter, brrrr. I want to get back to some weights (with a sprinkle of running), but I am excited for running more races in the spring.

In the picture above, 5 out of the 9 of us got sick with a stomach bug. I’m amazed that Daniel and Adeline are healthy! I’m definitely praising the Lord for that. I was sick on Saturday, I haven’t slept that much in a LONG time! A huge THANK YOU to Daniel for being daddy of the year while I rested in bed the majority of Saturday.

And one of my most FAVORITE reads from the week: To the Mamas of Littles during the Holidays: Do Less Stuff. Here’s a hint- if whatever you’re planning on doing is likely to make you angry with your kids, it’s probably not that important. I’m eyeing you, super-cute Holiday Pinterest crafts!

December is one of my most favorite months: Christmas, my Birthday and the cheer that seems to linger in the air. This Friday is the annual Holiday Party with Daniel’s work! Last year, Adeline was just 9 weeks old when we took our first night away! What fun!

I hope you had an AWESOME November, and I’m hoping to snap some pictures of Adeline soon for her 14 month update!

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Hope that everyone had a WONDERFUL Christmas celebration! We sure did! Family, friends, good food and the Holidays. What more does one need?

I have a slight addiction to Brooks Adrenaline running shoes. Ever since I started running, Brooks have been my shoe of choice. I started out as a SUPER pronator (ankles rolling inward), so my running store in Louisville fitted me into Brooks Ariels. They sort of look like grandma shoes with brighter colors, no?

(source)

After strengthening my knees and ankles after my first season of cross country in High School, I graduated to the Brooks Adrenaline line. Actually, almost our entire high school girls XC team wore Brooks! I just realized that I’ve been wearing Brooks (both racing and training shoes) since 2004!! Wow!

Here is my current “collection”, one of these pairs does not belong…

My knees and back and hips and ankles are SO happy to have received a new pair of Brooks Adrenaline GTS 11’s for Christmas.

Running friends, it’s time to cringe. I haven’t had a new pair of running shoes since the summer of 2009. Daniel bought me a new pair of Brooks before I went to Kenya for 3 months in 2009. Granted, I didn’t run a whole lot in 2009 or 2010, BUT, that was the last time that any new running shoes were on my feet… YIKES

The 9’s gave me a TERRIBLE blister on the inside of my arch this past summer (I think I wore the wrong socks), so they’ve been retired for a while even though the tread isn’t too bad…

Then I wore the Brooks 8’s from my 2008 XC season for a while, but I just don’t really like the way that they feel. Weird.

The shoes I’ve been wearing the most often are the shoes that Daniel got me right before I left for Kenya in 2009. I wore them for the Bourbon Chase, and they’re the shoes I’ve been training in for most of the summer and fall. As I mentioned before, not a whole lot of running happened in 2009 and 2010, but I used these shoes for lots of everyday activities as well.

Holy moly. I did not realize that I had worn through the rubber on the bottom of my shoe until after my 2011 Turkey Trot race. I think I posted that my right hamstring was acting a little bit funky during the race, and one of the Therapists at work said that I had a minor hamstring pull. How could I NOT have a minor injury with shoes that look like this! (I even wore a hole in the upper of my right shoe)

It was super fun to receive a new pair of running shoes for Christmas, partly because I forgot what the bottom of a shoe SHOULD look like!!!

One more comparison:

My joints are happy again, and I have a few pairs of shoes to donate! I’ll probably hang on to the pair that is the most worn through for my summer mowing shoes, but the other ones will go to a shoe drive!

One last “bad runner” item that I need to get off of my chest: I’ve been wearing the SAME shoe inserts since I started running. Back in 2004. I’ve never ever bought another pair. Exhibit A:

I think I’ll try running with the inserts that came with this new pair of shoes, but if I don’t like the way they feel, I’ll probably slip in my 6 year old inserts back into my brand new kicks. Maybe next year for Christmas I’ll get a new pair of inserts

To congratulate you for making it through this post, here is a picture of Silas:

A quick intro to The Bourbon Chase: an overnight 200 mile relay race on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. We had a team of 11 courageous runners- The bodyFIT Bootleggers: Adam, Scott, Brock, Grant, Cindi, Jon, Kristen, Ryan, Scott and Emily. Below are the fantastic members of Van 1:

And here are the superstars of Van 2:

Each team is split into two vans, Adam, Scott, Brock, Grant, Cindi and myself were in Van 1, and the rest of the team was in Van 2. The race is a relay-race, so Van 1 members run each of their “legs” of the race, and after the last runner runs his leg of the race, the baton is passed on to Van 2. After the handoff, Van 1 gets to rest while Van 2 completes their legs of the course. Each runner ran a total of 3 legs (except Jon, Grant and Ryan all ran extra legs of the race because we were short one person). Confusing? Not really! There are 36 legs of the course, and each leg varies in distance and in difficulty. You can look back at my “Preparation” post to see the legs of the run that I did! Here’s a map of the entire course:

Our next stop was Heaven Hill where Scott had the “Stairway to Heaven Hill” aka: “Run up this huge hill and then get a free Bourbon Sample”

At Heaven Hill, Scott passed the Baton to Grant aka “The Workhorse” who absolutely killed all of his runs!

Grant then passed the baton onto yours truly:

Check out that horrible heel strike in the last picture! By the time I was finishing my first run, the sun was beginning to set, and I passed the baton on to Brock, our 6th runner who finished his leg of the race at Maker’s Mark.

At Maker’s Mark, we got our free bourbon samples and said “hi” to Van 2 who were just about to start their runs!

Since it was already getting dark, Van 2 started their runs in our “nighttime” gear: headlamp, reflective vest and a tail-light.

During our “breaks” from running, we did a lot of this:

Fortunately our team decided to get a hotel room, and we all went back to shower/rest for a little while. Van 2 finished with their legs of the run around 11:30pm, so we met them at the next transition and began our second legs of running. I don’t have any pictures of the night runs, but it was dark, and it got MUCH cooler (it had been 85+ degrees during our first runs, so the cold night air was VERY welcome!) Running at 3:30am is a very bizarre thing, but that was honestly one of my favorite parts of the whole race! And to think that I had been nervous about that run! Van 1 did an AMAZING job on our night runs-the heat from earlier in the day had made our first run pretty difficult, but we definitely redeemed ourselves with the night run! We passed our baton back to Van 2 around 5am on Saturday morning in Davnille and then we headed to our hotel for THE BEST 2 hours of sleep I’ve ever had.

During our quick “nap”, Van 2 did a fantastic job running their second round. We met up again at Four Roses Distillery around 11am on Saturday. Unfortunately, the leg that Cindy ran from Four Roses to the next checkpoint was pretty short, so we didn’t actually get to any bourbon sampling at Four Roses

However, when we left Four Roses, we got to drive through a creek (it was the only way out)! I bet out-of-towners started questioning the sanity of us Kentuckians at that point…

Our third (and Grant’s third and fourth) runs went very well, we were all thoroughly tired by the time we had the next big exchange at Woodford Reserve.

Sadly, this is where I left my teammates because I had to attend a wedding (a WONDERFUL wedding!) Van 2 finished their last runs, and the entire team crossed the finish line back in Lexington.

Everyone got medals, bourbon and more bourbon at the awards ceremony!

The bodyFIT Bootleggers finished the entire 200 mile race in 29 hours 24 minutes and 40 seconds. I cannot wait to participate in the Bourbon Chase again next year, and hopefully, I’ll be able to run it with some of my same teammates Thank you all for making this such a wonderful experience! Here are a few more pictures (like this post didn’t have enough pictures already):

Road kill was to mark how many people we had passed, I think our van ended up passing 26 people!

I am SO ready for next year’s chase!

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Welcome!

I'm Holly. A Christian wife and first-time mom in Cincinnati. This is my niche to write about our lives- we are a mostly gluten-free, cloth-diapering, budgeting family. I try to honor my body by exercising regularly and by creating nutritious meals for my family. Welcome to The Cooper Family blog!